Originally Posted by IDigCereal
The opening shot of Touch of Evil is probably one of the most famous long shots in history.
Yes, the opening sequence in
Touch of Evil is one of the first and oft cited examples.
After the Universal logo fades the first image we see is a close-up of a man holding a bomb and setting the timer. He places it in the trunk of a convertible just before a man and woman get into it and drive away. The camera floats above the building and we follow the car pull down the street, through the town. Revealed walking down the street next to the car at one point are the characters played by Chuck Heston and Janet Leigh. They are walking the same direction as the car - toward the U.S. border (we are in a Mexican bordertown). The car is stopped at an intersection because of a bunch of goats so the camera stays with Heston and Leigh for a while as they walk. There are street vendors and dozens of extras walking the streets of this town. The couple and the car with the bomb in the trunk meet again at the border checkpiont. The two on foot are let go first after we learn they are newlyweds, then the officers talk to the man in the car. The woman passenger is trying to explain, "Hey, I got this ticking in my head," but nobody pays her any attention. The car drives on and the camera rests on Heston and Leigh again. Just as they are about to kiss they are interrupted by a large explosion. The scene finally cuts to reveal a fireball of a car. That opening runs about fifteen seconds over four minutes in length. A real masterpiece.
That scene as well as others are referenced directly in the opening shot of Robert Altman's
The Player, which is nearly twice as long and elaborate as Welles'.
The movie starts with a mural and the clapboard and behind the scenes goings on heard as the film is brought to speed and action called. The mural is in an office, where a secretary answers a phone. The camera pulls out of the door and we see we are on a Studio lot, where all the executive offices are housed. In the parking lot Griffin Mill's (Tim Robbins) black Range Rover pulls up and he enters the building. As he enters Fred Ward's security chief is stepping out of the building, talking to a young employee. Their dialogue starts with Ward noting, "Pictures they make these days are all M-TV; cut, cut, cut, cut. The opening shot of Welles'
Touch of Evil was six and a half minutes long." The young man asks in disbelief, "Six and a half minutes long?" To which Ward replies, "Well, three or four anyway. He set the whole picture up with that one tracking shot." Altman's unbroken tracking shot continues and in fact has hardly just begun. The boy asks Ward about the shot in
Absolute Beginners, and Ward dismisses it by saying he hasn't seen it.
After leaving Ward the camera spies into Mill's office through the window where he is meeting Buck Henry for a pitch;
The Graduate Part II. From that meeting the camera shifts back to the parking lot to reveal an accident between the mailboy on his bike and a man in one of those golf cart things. The bin of mail is spilled all over the lot and the camera focuses in on one postcard. Then we pull back to see a Porsche pull onto the lot and stop a pretty blonde to ask if she's Rebecca DeMornay (she isn't). But that action is interrupted by Jeremy Piven's character giving a group of ten or so visiting Japanese a tour. That gives way to the current Studio boss, Shel (Brion James), arriving in his car and entering the offices. The camera goes around the corner again to peek in through Griffin's window where he is getting yet another pitch;
Out of Africa meets
Pretty Woman. Pulling back outside again we see Alan Rudoplh asking the young man Fred Ward was talking to earlier where Mill's office is. Then we see Buck Henry now with Ward, still talking about long tracking shots. Buck brings up the shot of Debra Winger in Bertolucci's
The Sheltering Sky, and again Ward says he hasn't seen it. The camera again finds Griffin Mill's office through the window and we hear Rudolph giving his pitch which is "Not unlike
Ghost meets
Manchurian Candidate". As Rudolph talks the mail is finally delivered to Mill and he turns over the postcard we saw spilled on the lot. It reads, "I HATE YOUR GUTS, *******". Mill slowly turns and looks supiciously out the window.
The scene finally cuts there after it has run all over the parking lot and around this office building for just over eight minutes straight.
Yeah.
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